Another tip for anyone aspiring to make games, especially if you’re ambitious. Don’t let anyone take the rights to your intellectual property. Keep that shit locked down and 100% owned by you, and lended to the companies you work in/with. Being able to pull out and have leverage against shady deals has helped me plenty.
Even if you keep your IP, be careful about licensing because you would wind up with a Hotel Mario situation where after you dip, they're still allowed to make a turd associated with you.
How does this work? If I create a project on my own time, and then I get picked up by a software company and I use that software to make a better version while working for them, do they own that new software?
@@llandy123 It's complicated and it HAS to be explicitly stated in the contract you sign. Personally, I wouldn't use a piece of hidden software that no one knows I made, and suddenly start using it in work hours. The most common case is that the software you develop during working hours, or using the company's software or hardware, belongs to them no matter what. So if you have something of your own, it should be VERY clear and without any doubt that YOU created it outside paid hours using only your own resources.
This is such a shity american thing, in France you cannot lose the right of your intellectual property. It is called "inalienable" which means you cannot even refuse to own your creations.
I worked for independent record labels for 12 years. This absolutely applies to both publishing, and generally signing to a record label as an artist. Well said.
Book publishing too. Pubs are incredibly lazy and 90% of their "artist strategy" is going to be making you market your work yourself -- something you could have done independently with no revenue split.
It costs way more time and money to produce a video game than it does make music with negligible difference in quality. Some ideas like No Man's Sky takes literal years of heavily active time consuming work done on the game. They needed Sony to finish the game at a state that was terrible but garnered enough money for them to continue to work on it years later. To make music, you don't need nearly the equipment, manpower and time as a game. You might take 8 years to make an album, but you weren't in the studio 8-12 hours a day for 8 years straight.
@@Parker-- Was just saying there are similarities man. And was agreeing with what was said. And, it also seems like you are assuming a lot about what it takes to write music and make a record.
@@Parker--as of right now it would take me upwards of ten years to develop enough skill with an instrument I've never played to get to a point id consider worthy of releasing an album or single. If i tried to release an album right now, it would sound worse than Buckethead - Dry Ice Screeches off his Mark of Davis pike album. He intentionally played like shit, and made it sound good. Where as id just sound like shit. I will adamantly say the same in regards to programming, im not one so id have to work and learn for years and quite easily a decade to get good enough to be considered for hire onto a dev team to publish a game. If youre referring to actual music and not just software any lame-o with a PC and slight computer skills can use to make some crappy edm remixes for tiktok. Im not trying to shit on actual sound engineers who use said software professionally. I mean Jesus, Skrillex used to be a vocalist and guitarist in a metal band (from first to last) before he even got into edm. However he had knowledge of music theory and also knew about marketing to new prospective fans, and made quick work of getting into the spot light. That took years of previous experience... You cant just walk into a recording studio and release a banger with zero skills, it takes years of work and self improvement as a musician to even consider that.
@@100GTAGUY OK well worth is subjective. Further, it would take an architect longer than a decade because they need to get their degree, hone their skill for ten years, then find another party willing to spend million and several years to build such a building with them at the helm. And that's not even a matter of worth equal to the album; that's any building. _"If youre referring to actual music and not just software any lame-o with a PC and slight computer skills can use to make some crappy edm remixes for tiktok."_ But that's just it. You don't need years of training and an expensive studio or even instruments to make music that some people will enjoy. You may not like that music just like some people don't like RPGs, but that doesn't mean no one likes that music or that no one likes RPGs. But for those who do, there are options for them that didn't take a hundreds of thousands of man hours and a huge budget to produce the game. Also, there have historically been tons of very young musical artists who wrote bangers. Mick Jagger was 19 when Rolling Stones were formed and had their first hit 2 years later and their first original hit 3 years later. Same thing for Roger Daltrey and The Who. Same thing for Elvis, a teenager, a decade earlier. Further, some people never create bangers no matter how long they work at their craft. This is true of RPGs as well. The difference is you can create your own music and you can create your own RPG by yourself or with a very small group and there will be tons of people that might enjoy it. That happens a decent amount. There are not shooters or action titles where you can make the same argument today.
@@kingoffalsepositives2804and if you still aren't sure at that point, it's because the strategy isn't good. If it's a good strategy, a marketing pro should be able to prove it easily.
@@Kywu as one should. One needs to take responsibility for their education. Only a shitty teacher will dismiss student's questions. Math professor here. I'm happiest when my students have questions and I'm more than willing to spend any time needed until every doubt is eliminated.
People really don't give Thor enough credit for his transparency. This guy is singlehandedly opening doors and avenues that big AAA corps would sooner leave closed to shut down indie devs
And if you need a reminder: Remember how many great game studios went bankrupt after their publishers forced them to make shit games or release them early.
@@ArariaKAgelessTraveller Not only did Gollum destroy Daedalic's reputation as a developer-- built up with over a decade of high quality point-and-click and Telltale style adventure games-- but they rubbed salt in the wound with an AI generated apology and slapped the dev's logo on it. If they trash your PR that hard, they've failed the one job they had as a publisher.
I work at a publisher, but on their game design team. What this man is saying is 100% correct. I would not entrust the future of my game to my own company. I would trust my team to give you great feedback because I know we're competent, but you'll most likely be talking to business people and marketing that have no clue what a good game looks like most of the time. Granted, I have marketing colleagues who are worthy of your trust, but the structure of a big company makes it hard for that to matter unless they're ready to fight the profit-driven system until they burn out. The big issue with what you're saying here though, is that most teams aren't looking for marketing necessarily, they are looking for initial funding, or complementary funding because they are going over budget. In this case a publisher is often the only way a game will get made at all. So, if you want to be able to stay away from publishers: SCOPE PROPERLY !!!!
"I would not entrust the future of my game to my own company" might be one of the most damning lines I've ever heard. And I swear it feels like, for all the issues Scott Adams had/has, the interdepartmental cluelessness you'd see in Dilbert really has a lot of grounding in the real world. (I used to be a big fan of it and I would laugh at it, until I realized "Shit... I can actually almost believe that happening.")
NEVER make any agreements with them that are based on critic scores. I was a dev and our studio got screwed out of launch bonuses by a Metacritic score that was literally 1% below their threshold.
That happened to Fallout NV and apparently it nearly led to Obsitian collapsing after a bunch of their staff left for better pay. Truly one of the absolute shittiest practices in the publishing industry, and it leads to devs and studios falling out of the industry constantly.
I remember the author's mantra that 'money should always flow towards you.' If you're getting a lot less out of it than they are, it says a lot about they think of you.
This is a human problem too, considering most people don't value their time at anywhere near what it's worth. The businesses are simply taking full advantage of that innate lack of self respect. But the markets do correct themselves after long enough of people tolerating the low quality handouts. I think we're due for a digital renaissance, frankly.
@@drfell9105most of the best advice I've ever received in my life wasn't groundbreaking. Groundbreaking doesn't mean good. And just because it's out there or makes sense...doesn't mean it's widely done. A lot of people entering an industry or area have no idea how it's done. And if they analyzed every aspect, they'd probably never get anywhere. So most people use frameworks for how to get started. Many of those frameworks for game dev likely include publishing. It's often likely mentioned to look into big publishers. Which makes it a common pitfall.
The problem is that technology has made many things so efficient for the middle men, to the point that in many cases they are not even needed... it can be done on your own. There's an entire infrastructure built around combatting common sense and logic so that middle men can take advantage of that high efficiency instead of you. When things change, you have to get the info out there and make sure people don't just follow along because "it's always been like this". Though "make sure you understand what you are signing" has always been so damn important. So many predatory contract horror stories out there... people who you'd think would be rich, and practically slaves to the company they signed on with. Ugh.
As someone who has gone through the publisher struggle. They love to discuss how they need all your money because of how difficult and costly it is for them, but get incredibly offended when you politely ask them basic operational questions.
My best friend is a self published indie and it's hell. I don't know how much better a publisher would have been but it's been hell for them and to get their game out there and get the game known. It's such a shame, a team of 3 poured their heart into a good game and it remains unknown.
@@MrDeldris It's genuinely criminal. Now more than ever, considering how little actual work labels, publishers etc. do these days. Who gives a shit if they can get your book in a shelve at Barnes & Nobles, somewhere in the back corner of the store? People discover, buy and consume online. In the end, you have to do your own advertising if you want success. Doesn't matter if you have a publisher or label attached to you like a parasite. At least not when you start out.
@@Til_What yea, it seems best to build a name on your own, THEN make a deal with a publisher where you can make a deal on YOUR terms because they'd be benefitting from attaching themselves to you now. rather than you needing them.
@@Til_What You realise publishers also pay for the editing, printing and distribution of books as well? It isn't surprising that someone on a Thor short is completely ignorant because he is completely ignorant as well. He just says absolute bullshit with confidence.
You know what, I've only been watching you for about 2 weeks, but it's really nice to listen to someone who is an expert in their field. It make such a lovely change on this platform. Do I *need* to know this stuff? No. Do I *want* to hear you talk about it? Absolutely yes.
Same for me! Just out of the blue! 😂 but I'm giving a thumbsup for every short im getting from him! Since I was liking every short I figured why not sub? So I did. He makes me want to get back into making games that died years ago. Keep up the good work man
If you don't have any strong marketing plan or a community that follow you, your games will be dead the moment it release. Hence why GOOD publishers are importants. Simply being featured by the like of Devolver Digital will boost your sells to the sky at a rate you wouldn't be able to achieve by yourself and few paid ads. Don't underestimate marketing, the success of your game entierely depends on it. Whatever how good it is, if your game ain't at least suggested by Steam for few days, it's dead on arrival and will go deep down in the infinite bottom of steam catalogue.
I've seen some horror stories on reddit of devs saying the publisher did basically nothing, didn't communicate, maybe made a Facebook post, other than that did next to no marketing. Just sat on their asses siphoning money away.
Yeah, you have to be really contract and negotiation savvy for that kind of thing or you'll just get fleeced. I can honestly only think of a single publisher that's renown for publishing and marketing nothing but great games that see a lot of publicity.
I just like them because they (or at least the guys at the top) have published every main serious sam game thus far (including TFE & TSE) + their main thing is indie games@@Edward-Not-Elric
Some publishers will even pay you for your game explicitly to sit on it because they have a game similar to it or they like more & they don't want your game to overshadow it if they see its already gotten a lot of natural traction. *DO NOT TRUST A PUBLISHER UNLESS YOU CAN REPLICATE THEIR PREDICTED RESULTS YOURSELF.* Sometimes even then I'd say it's not worth it because the potential for your game to get completely fucked over by adding that company into the mix is just too high
Yeah, any good deal makes more wealth for both parties than was possible without cooperation. Any deal that cuts into wealth of one party in net is a bad deal for that party.@@MarkoIronFist
high up the reasons I gotta give it to yt algorithm is having randomly found your shorts one day. I have been consistently educated effortlessly. thanks mate!
You can absolutely self publish, it has gotten easier to do so in the modern age. But getting a publisher is still a common practice, so I think OP means more like finding the right publishers. Because book publishers will 110% screw you over in the same way other publishing companies do. Just because it's a common business practice, doesn't make book publishers any less of a vampire XD. You just had to either deal with it, or find a different book publisher that wont screw you over as hard/or (if you're really lucky), wont screw you over at all. Fortunately, now self publishing is becoming more of a thing (via online publishing, and the like), and hopefully more avenues for self publishing will open up in the future.
@@shadowpower1856 I see, I knew the op probably refered to online publishing and the likes but I was interested to have is full thought if he had experiend as a self publisher. Nonetheless thank you for your answer.
The easiest way to make money now that the internet is easily accessible to everyone is to ask a streamer to play your game. If you know the game is good and worth playing, then the loss of a single copy to let a big-time streamer play it and give their own opinions will far outweighed by the fans and connections of the streamer.
This advice is misleading IMO. Most publishers don't just take your finished game and market it. The reason you go to them and sign off such a big cut or even ownership is because they provide the funding and resources that help the game actually get built in the first place. You can try to pull off a dwarf fortress or kenshi, but most games cost more than just your time to make.
I am currently studying for a game dev job. only been seeing your content for a month and the industry stuff you have talked about is such a eye-opener.
It's the same with advertising. I run a retail store. Traditional advertising like billboards and stuff have been such a waste of money for me. The only thing worth money dollar for dollar is digital advertising
They supposedly work, yet i've never seen anyone care about them, nor can i imagine a real human being who'd care about them existing. It's also probably a matter of "it works best if your brand is already known/successful and you want to shove it down people's throat a bit further".
fun fact: Costco doesn't have a budget for advertisements. the company policy is word of mouth. Its also why they keep the hotdog combo at 1.50$ (or comparable based on local currency). Food court requires no membership (in most locations), you can walk in, see some things nearby you may be interested in, see that cheap gas, and get tempted to member up.
@@Dice-ZWith excellent copywriting/editing, all advertisements can generate click-through/travel-to. The problem is very few are creating these signs with mastery of copy. It's an art form for marketing, and few have a mastery of it. And those that do have it, make gargantuan amounts of money and work for large copy/marketing firms.
Traditional book publishing is a little different, it’s getting an agent that’s the similar part which they’ll take 10% of everything. But getting an advance that you don’t need to pay back if it flops in the market is huge
@@sorryman105it's not uncommon for publishers to use funding to boost sales numbers immediately after release. This is how so many books get sales related awards, despite being fairly unsuccessful overall
Book publishers are WORSE than game publishers. You only get ~10% of sales plus an overrated advance...it's a total fraud. The best bet is to self-publish and keep most of the profits. Yes, JK Rowling and George Martin get more but they outliers and big names. There are self-publishing kits for books, you can hire people to do proofing/cover artwork/etc...plus for marketing most publishers will demand YOU make significant steps to advertise raise PR for your book. If you have to do it anyways, who needs a publisher? Lastly, many publishers will second guess many of your decisions and force your to cut or add material in inappropriate spots. Sadly too many authors are hypnotized by the thought of an advance and they give away all their rights for it.
@@revimfadli4666 Honestly, it doesn't even cost much. They just release during periods where there isn't much competition and they'll buy enough books to give out or resell so that it boosts them to #1 on the correct day to get the award.
As someone whose job has been to help the publisher screw you I learned is there are two reasons you need a publisher for any indie tier project. The first is you've got something special and you need a way to market the fuck out of it and you ran out of money and you forgot to save some to hire marketing for yourself. The second is your almost done and you ran out of money and you need someone to foot the cost to finish the job. Always start the discussion by asking them how much they will give you for 30% off the bottom. Never let them name a price or a rate without countering it with a rate and the question of how much they will give. I think the most hilarious deal I was ever privy to was 30% off the top until the publisher made their money back and then it became 15% off the bottom. This was in return for the publisher handling localization to eight different languages, marketing, and helping get the game onto a few alternative storefronts that used to be more selective about what got on. And always make sure that if you sign any deals with conditionals that the conditionals are based off of sales not income nor critics scores. Just unit sales numbers. Also avoid A recent trend of conditionals based on "certain key influencers" looking at your game. It is never a good deal and you will always fail the condition. That condition is super scummy and I seen it a few times in niche genre games. What they will do is they will list certain very niche genre UA-camrs and streamers who play very specific games and typically only do one or two videos outside of their main game or two, and they will tell you that combined amongst all of them you need to hit 50 hours of content. That doesn't sound like a lot. There will usually be several names on the list, many of whom put out several hours of content each week, several of which might even put out three or four hour videos multiple times a week or have several multi-hour streams. And they will probably set this condition to be over a very long period of time compared to other conditionals. I saw one company say that you had to have a 100 hours of content from the list of influencers they had marked for your genre within 3 years. That's an impossible task. The reason it is impossible is their viewers will watch one or two videos outside of their main games. Not only that but it will be a very small minority of their viewers who will watch those videos. It was also not be bringing in new viewers as readily as their main game. Therefore they will do a video or two each and then likely abandon you. Somebody way bigger than all of them combined might decide that they love that game and give you 600 hours of content within the time limit, but because they aren't on the shortlist it doesn't matter. And your publisher will tell you that they don't count because their viewer base has not been determined to be primarily interested in the type of game you made and therefore are not likely to buy the game. It's a condition designed to doom you.
So thats the practice in game publishing. I am like you, but on another type of IP, we don't do any of those. Usually its just normal advances or revenue sharing.
@@totally_not_a_botit sounds like revenue(top) vs net income(bottom)? So maybe % of selling price vs % of profit? Sorry I'm just guessing. I wanna know too.
The thing is word of mouth is free, and powerful. I’m way more likely to try a game my friends recommend over something I see advertised at me 10 times an hour.
I believe, from the only two indie developers I know personally, that if you can sustain yourself and you plan to continue developing personal projects, the exposure is worth the buyin for the first project you can get published IF YOU'RE UNABLE TO MARKET YOURSELF EFFECTIVELY
This advice has value in any business venture. There will always be people eager for a piece of a good idea who are ready to promise you they will add value. But if they're not prepared to risk anything to make sure that your venture or idea or product succeeds? They will not be willing to work as hard as you did to make sure they hold up their end. Never go into business with someone who isn't a sure thing - unless they're willing to put themselves in a position to lose every bit as much as you will if they fail.
Some good advice. I would say it's the same for job interviews. You don't go in there to be interviewed. You are going there to interview them to see if THEY are valuable enough for your high value. The table simply needs to be flipped around on them, in that regard you get everything you want and more, and the company gets the best candidate for the role. That's what they're really looking for after all.
The answer will almost always be I don't know. Some great games that came out flopped and it was till years later when the game company went bankrupt that people started to really buy the game.
@@bronzejourney5784The thing is, without a marketing budget, you truly don't know. Unless your publisher does give you explicit numbers about how much they'll spend advertising your game and it's significant, you can't know.
I'm a decade plus on the music industry as a recording engineer. This is VERY accurate advice. Manage your own brand until you're growing to a point that you need the extra help. And if you get to this point you'll have all the leverage because you'll come with an audience. Perfect music industry example is Dave Mathew's band.
Contract agencies in the software world are terrible too. One job I got through an agency i eventually found out that they were taking 40% off the top of what they were getting paid for as long as i had the contract and they provided me nothing aside from the interview. Putting me in that room earned them like $150,000, it's truly insane how much money they make doing that
Also remember, networking. Networking is incredibly important. Take note of UA-camr's that play lesser known games, or that have an interest that lines up with the game your making. All a publisher is really doing is marketing your game for you, sometimes a publisher can aid in getting game's out but more than likely it's just marketing. You can do a good part of it yourself and at the end of the day that may be all it takes.
This is the benefit of professionals having outlets like this. This is the kind of mentorship a lot of people would pay for and need. Stuff you have to parse through to figure out the truth yourself.
As someone coming from the music industry, record labels work the same way. In many cases, you don’t see a dime of your profits until you recoup what they loan you. In many cases with smaller artists this can hurt more than help.
Yeah, used to be you needed publishers because they spent the millenia of their unlive networking and amassing the assets needed to distribute games, but thanks to the power of digital distribution, we don't need those bloodsuckers anymore.
Last comment you made is 100%. This is great advice because it applies to every single thing. Even Gary Gygax made this mistake. I am a Real Estate agent, biggest question by my potential sellers, "why should I give away 7% of the profit of my house to an agent?" I've never lost a listing over this question. Why? Long story short, most homeowners sell their home anywhere between 12-20% less than sellers who used an agent. A creative product, like a game or a book is a piece of yourself. It could be the most important asset you own, don't give it to someone else.
100% correct. If anyone wants your money, they need to show **exactly** how you'll be better off for it. Predatory publishing is as old as the hills in all facets of intellectual property, not just the videogame industry. With money matters, your default answer should always be "no" until they can prove that it's worth a "yes".
That’s pretty much why I have so much respect for Dunkey and his publishing team. One of the few out there that realize that both parties can mutually benefit without having to screw over devs
@@Bloodhovenindie publisher/developer who specializes in boomer shooters. They’re a pretty beloved in the space. Not exactly sure what their business model is but apparently OP thinks they’re pretty cool.
Faith: the unholy trinity, ultrakill, dusk, and a few other great games are published by new blood interactive, and from what i heard they pretty much just let the devs do whatever they want without limiting their creative vision or siphoning 90% of the money. Which already makes them an S-tier publisher by comparison.
Thanks Thor I enjoy your UA-cam shorts they are clear and concise to the point with no bullshit advice. it's just the stuff you need to know and nothing you don't and you might even learn some stuff sometimes I certainly do.
Its Not that easy to compare with book publishing. Cuz publishing and multiplying a book (printing, Binding, Cover) is way Harder than publishing your game on Steam or smth comparable.
Okay youre comparing a material good to a digital copy, games up until very recently still had to handle the same logistics of making a CD. Hence why its still an apt comparison, people are super on the fence about going fully digital for content because of TOS and censorship BS from corporations. Make a clan tag the dev doesnt like? Bye bye access key, youve been banned entirely from all aspects of your purchased digital copy. Cant even play story mode, your access key to launch is gone. With a disc however they cant revoke squat. Things are about to get very 1984 animal farmy very soon, even for in home entertainment.
Yeah.... We took a publisher for our game and they actually got us some decent content creators..... but 0 ads or other competent marketing. Within 6 months they created 50 social media followers. When we tried it ourselves we made 125 within a single month just stumbling around. They take 20% on pc and 40% on consoles and they do JACK SHIT. They are incompetent to the point they fail at basics. I really regret that we signed with them. Had we taken certain other publishers (there are great ones like Hooded Horse), it would have been good. The only major good things they did were: - They got us a booth at Gamescom - They got us a stream with a big content creator Thats it. No advertisement, recouping of marketing assets that were crap and weren't used.... bad idea. They also ALWAYS prioritized their other games.
Thank you so much for making these videos. I don't know why, but it takes me back to the shareware/freeware days, hell even the old Amiga public domain days. I understand that things have changed a lot, but there was a time when games didn't live or die if it had words like "Activision" or "Unreal Engine" in the marketing or on a title screen. Your videos are inspirational and hopefully fall upon the ears of that person/persons slogging it out on their passion project wondering if what they are doing is right, and in the end is it worth putting in the work.
Unfortunately lawyers are viewed in an extremely similar light as publishers, just grabbing at your money hoping to do the bare minimum for maximum income. If you do however find a lawyer worth their salt hire them immediately, maybe even consider putting them onto your own compankes legal team if you dont have one.
This is a very good piece of advice. I included this soundbite in a recent video I made warning content creators about blindly signing up for something without thinking of your channel’s future. I made sure to direct people back to this clip!
Wow. What a great radio-talk voice you have, oh my! Uniquely great sounding to the ears- the kind that's easy and enjoyable to listen to reading outloud/storytelling!!!
I absolutely love this guy!! The advice he gives is in relation to games and game development etc but you can take it and apply it to all sorts of life situations. Amazing guy, so humble and honest. We need more people like him in this world.
There are a lot of publishers out there that can really help prop up developers. A great one that comes to mind is Devolver Digital. They've helped a ton of indie games like Enter the Gungeon, Cult of the Lamb, Inscryption, etc.
It's so invaluable because this happens in the music world. You'll hear all these stories of indie bands that were found by the big label and hit it big. This is not the case for everyone and in large part if a band signs a deal like this and the label doesn't recoup the costs of the record, you will never see that band again because not only will they be released from the label but they will be indebted to the label until such a time as the label recoups those costs.
100% can attest to this. I fell for this trap sadly, and after signing I started running numbers, and I realized I might never see positive returns from doing this, which demotivated me and now my book remains unfinished.
Definitely a good example of a ‘You don’t need a Publisher’ is Zeekers, the developer/publisher of Lethal Company. Dude made that shit by himself, published it by himself on steam and made an instant classic for anybody who had 20 bucks to spare. Dude is a millionaire now, as a result of that explosion of popularity
As a player I think Annapurna has done a fantastic publishing job, their catalogue is packed with amazing games like Stray, Cocoon, and Outer Wilds. I just hope their business practices are fair
„If they don’t make you more profit then they cost you, then they aren’t worth it.“ I think that kind of applies to everything in life lol. And you can take enjoyment as a type of profit
This is suddenly the most interesting channel out there for me. Its like I can apply all of it to every aspect of life and then there is the gaming aspect of things. Its smart its fun Im diggin' it.
This dude quickly became one of my favorite UA-cam shorts to flip through. I’ve played bloat and games since Warcraft II that’s what got me started. But this dude is next level genius in the cyber space
A lot of starting gamedevs are going to publishers to have money to develop the game until it comes out. That's why what happens after the games gets made and put into the market can be an afterthought.
This short randomly showed up in my suggestions and... honestly, I'm subscribing. The little nugget of knowledge is so useful. I'm in the process of writing a novel series. I'm nearing the end of the very first book, and this is something I'm gonna have to start looking into. It's so simple, but it makes so much sense.
Good point! Nowadays thanks to the internet, publishers no longer have a monopoly on publishing stuff. Nowadays you either don't need one or you're a big enough company that you can just employ some people to do that job.
Hello! This explains EDM music labels perfectly too. There are so many labels out there and very few that actually have the proof and reputation to make sense to artists. Thanks for this video, I'm gonna link this a lot now haha.
It's also the fact that publishers don't care whether or not your game succeeds. They care about the money they got from publishing it. So if you publish it yourself and extend the reach of the game and put it in front of people, it's 100% return.
Publishers can really screw you over if you're not careful, don't underestimate the risks. Keep control of your intellectual property, it's crucial for your success.
Love what you're saying! Publishers are soul sucking vampires. I work for a small-ish studio that for years just did outsource work and made assets, now we are getting ready to release our first real game and the publisher offers that pop up are just obscene. So we hilariously give them back such insane counter offers that they just cease contact with us.
I appreciate him including books in this too. Publishing is purely about promotional clout, nothing more. It’s marketing. If their marketing isn’t going to pay off for you, you don’t need or want their help.
I learned this personally by playing Game Dev Tycoon. Look at how much money you make with a publisher vs. how much you make without. At the beginning, you need a publisher if you want to make a AAA game so you can get your game out to a larger market, but you can totally self-publish smaller games. As you grow, you don't need a publisher as much.
It’s the SAME exact way in the music industry. People think you need to sign to a label to make it. EVERYTHING the label does for you is a loan that, believe me, you ARE going to pay back to them. That’s why touring is so important. Bands make more money on touring/merch than ANYTHING to do with their actual music.
I worked in the QA department on a game called Steel Soldiers way back in 2001 which released without any fanfare because the marketing people didn't do their job, which caused the company to fold. Such a shame, as it was genuinly a fantastic game.
The dev of my favorite game just got a publisher who is handling their advertising only. Dev is 100% for everything with the game. Effectively just a hype man 😂
My guy out here raising future game devs one short at a time like it's no-one's business
real
literally and figuratively
yet has done a rather poor job of raising uh, himself as one
I guess if you can't do, then teach?
and if you can't teach, teach Gym class
@@user-xz6qc5ej2r The fuck are you talking about?
@@user-xz6qc5ej2rit's just as valuable to learn from failure as one should from success.
Another tip for anyone aspiring to make games, especially if you’re ambitious. Don’t let anyone take the rights to your intellectual property. Keep that shit locked down and 100% owned by you, and lended to the companies you work in/with. Being able to pull out and have leverage against shady deals has helped me plenty.
Even if you keep your IP, be careful about licensing because you would wind up with a Hotel Mario situation where after you dip, they're still allowed to make a turd associated with you.
How does this work? If I create a project on my own time, and then I get picked up by a software company and I use that software to make a better version while working for them, do they own that new software?
@@llandy123 It's complicated and it HAS to be explicitly stated in the contract you sign. Personally, I wouldn't use a piece of hidden software that no one knows I made, and suddenly start using it in work hours. The most common case is that the software you develop during working hours, or using the company's software or hardware, belongs to them no matter what. So if you have something of your own, it should be VERY clear and without any doubt that YOU created it outside paid hours using only your own resources.
Hell look at nintendo they keep their shit TIGHT and rake in the money.
This is such a shity american thing, in France you cannot lose the right of your intellectual property. It is called "inalienable" which means you cannot even refuse to own your creations.
well i never seen a publisher during the day so I don't doubt your accusation
Google "Andrew Wilson", EA's CEO and look at his face.
@@postblitz😂😂
@@postblitzsavage lol
@@postblitzbruh💀 he like a live action buzz lightyear
du de looks like a live action fortnite lighttyear buzz aldrin@@postblitz
I worked for independent record labels for 12 years. This absolutely applies to both publishing, and generally signing to a record label as an artist. Well said.
Book publishing too. Pubs are incredibly lazy and 90% of their "artist strategy" is going to be making you market your work yourself -- something you could have done independently with no revenue split.
It costs way more time and money to produce a video game than it does make music with negligible difference in quality. Some ideas like No Man's Sky takes literal years of heavily active time consuming work done on the game. They needed Sony to finish the game at a state that was terrible but garnered enough money for them to continue to work on it years later. To make music, you don't need nearly the equipment, manpower and time as a game. You might take 8 years to make an album, but you weren't in the studio 8-12 hours a day for 8 years straight.
@@Parker-- Was just saying there are similarities man. And was agreeing with what was said. And, it also seems like you are assuming a lot about what it takes to write music and make a record.
@@Parker--as of right now it would take me upwards of ten years to develop enough skill with an instrument I've never played to get to a point id consider worthy of releasing an album or single. If i tried to release an album right now, it would sound worse than Buckethead - Dry Ice Screeches off his Mark of Davis pike album. He intentionally played like shit, and made it sound good. Where as id just sound like shit.
I will adamantly say the same in regards to programming, im not one so id have to work and learn for years and quite easily a decade to get good enough to be considered for hire onto a dev team to publish a game.
If youre referring to actual music and not just software any lame-o with a PC and slight computer skills can use to make some crappy edm remixes for tiktok. Im not trying to shit on actual sound engineers who use said software professionally. I mean Jesus, Skrillex used to be a vocalist and guitarist in a metal band (from first to last) before he even got into edm. However he had knowledge of music theory and also knew about marketing to new prospective fans, and made quick work of getting into the spot light. That took years of previous experience...
You cant just walk into a recording studio and release a banger with zero skills, it takes years of work and self improvement as a musician to even consider that.
@@100GTAGUY OK well worth is subjective. Further, it would take an architect longer than a decade because they need to get their degree, hone their skill for ten years, then find another party willing to spend million and several years to build such a building with them at the helm. And that's not even a matter of worth equal to the album; that's any building.
_"If youre referring to actual music and not just software any lame-o with a PC and slight computer skills can use to make some crappy edm remixes for tiktok."_
But that's just it. You don't need years of training and an expensive studio or even instruments to make music that some people will enjoy. You may not like that music just like some people don't like RPGs, but that doesn't mean no one likes that music or that no one likes RPGs. But for those who do, there are options for them that didn't take a hundreds of thousands of man hours and a huge budget to produce the game.
Also, there have historically been tons of very young musical artists who wrote bangers. Mick Jagger was 19 when Rolling Stones were formed and had their first hit 2 years later and their first original hit 3 years later. Same thing for Roger Daltrey and The Who. Same thing for Elvis, a teenager, a decade earlier.
Further, some people never create bangers no matter how long they work at their craft. This is true of RPGs as well. The difference is you can create your own music and you can create your own RPG by yourself or with a very small group and there will be tons of people that might enjoy it. That happens a decent amount. There are not shooters or action titles where you can make the same argument today.
“And it makes sense to you,”
Don’t underestimate this part. Ask questions until you understand fully.
i've been annoyed my math teacher this way
Obviously. Most people fail because they can't think logically tho
The point is, sometimes even after asking all the possible clarifying questions you can still not be sure if it's a good strategy.
@@kingoffalsepositives2804and if you still aren't sure at that point, it's because the strategy isn't good. If it's a good strategy, a marketing pro should be able to prove it easily.
@@Kywu as one should. One needs to take responsibility for their education. Only a shitty teacher will dismiss student's questions. Math professor here. I'm happiest when my students have questions and I'm more than willing to spend any time needed until every doubt is eliminated.
People really don't give Thor enough credit for his transparency. This guy is singlehandedly opening doors and avenues that big AAA corps would sooner leave closed to shut down indie devs
And if you need a reminder: Remember how many great game studios went bankrupt after their publishers forced them to make shit games or release them early.
Remembering Penumbra and the third game...
Flagship Studios with Hellgate London is the first that comes to mind for me. Thanks, EA
dude, just look at golum and kungkong game released this year
@@ArariaKAgelessTraveller maybe Gollum but I don't know if you can blame King turd on the publisher.
@@ArariaKAgelessTraveller Not only did Gollum destroy Daedalic's reputation as a developer-- built up with over a decade of high quality point-and-click and Telltale style adventure games-- but they rubbed salt in the wound with an AI generated apology and slapped the dev's logo on it. If they trash your PR that hard, they've failed the one job they had as a publisher.
I work at a publisher, but on their game design team. What this man is saying is 100% correct. I would not entrust the future of my game to my own company. I would trust my team to give you great feedback because I know we're competent, but you'll most likely be talking to business people and marketing that have no clue what a good game looks like most of the time.
Granted, I have marketing colleagues who are worthy of your trust, but the structure of a big company makes it hard for that to matter unless they're ready to fight the profit-driven system until they burn out.
The big issue with what you're saying here though, is that most teams aren't looking for marketing necessarily, they are looking for initial funding, or complementary funding because they are going over budget.
In this case a publisher is often the only way a game will get made at all.
So, if you want to be able to stay away from publishers: SCOPE PROPERLY !!!!
"I would not entrust the future of my game to my own company" might be one of the most damning lines I've ever heard.
And I swear it feels like, for all the issues Scott Adams had/has, the interdepartmental cluelessness you'd see in Dilbert really has a lot of grounding in the real world. (I used to be a big fan of it and I would laugh at it, until I realized "Shit... I can actually almost believe that happening.")
NEVER make any agreements with them that are based on critic scores. I was a dev and our studio got screwed out of launch bonuses by a Metacritic score that was literally 1% below their threshold.
Oh man I remember that happening at least once but can't recall which game it was.
@@redblue9478allegedly it happened with fallout new Vegas
@@redblue9478 Obsidian with Bethesda on FNV
@@redblue9478 Probably Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian got shafted for that one.
That happened to Fallout NV and apparently it nearly led to Obsitian collapsing after a bunch of their staff left for better pay. Truly one of the absolute shittiest practices in the publishing industry, and it leads to devs and studios falling out of the industry constantly.
I remember the author's mantra that 'money should always flow towards you.'
If you're getting a lot less out of it than they are, it says a lot about they think of you.
This is a human problem too, considering most people don't value their time at anywhere near what it's worth. The businesses are simply taking full advantage of that innate lack of self respect. But the markets do correct themselves after long enough of people tolerating the low quality handouts. I think we're due for a digital renaissance, frankly.
"If you don't plan before contracting a publisher, you go to hell before you die."
- Mario Mario
who is mario mario?
@@Bloodhovenit's Mario Mario
@@Bloodhoven Mario and Luigi's last names are Mario, they're the Mario Brother's
@NostalgicOccultist that's been confirmed non-canon for decades. just a quote from the first movie.
Is this the anti drug campaign thing 😂
The amount of knowledge this guy is imparting us through his shorts is INSANE
Is this really groundbreaking knowledge though? "If it isn't profitable don't do it." Real high level stuff.
@@drfell9105most of the best advice I've ever received in my life wasn't groundbreaking.
Groundbreaking doesn't mean good.
And just because it's out there or makes sense...doesn't mean it's widely done.
A lot of people entering an industry or area have no idea how it's done. And if they analyzed every aspect, they'd probably never get anywhere.
So most people use frameworks for how to get started. Many of those frameworks for game dev likely include publishing. It's often likely mentioned to look into big publishers.
Which makes it a common pitfall.
The problem is that technology has made many things so efficient for the middle men, to the point that in many cases they are not even needed... it can be done on your own.
There's an entire infrastructure built around combatting common sense and logic so that middle men can take advantage of that high efficiency instead of you.
When things change, you have to get the info out there and make sure people don't just follow along because "it's always been like this".
Though "make sure you understand what you are signing" has always been so damn important. So many predatory contract horror stories out there... people who you'd think would be rich, and practically slaves to the company they signed on with. Ugh.
As someone who has gone through the publisher struggle. They love to discuss how they need all your money because of how difficult and costly it is for them, but get incredibly offended when you politely ask them basic operational questions.
what questions?
@@sunofabeach9424 "what exactly are you spending the money on?"
"how much revenue will this generate?", etc.
@@pablopereyra7126 thanks
@@pablopereyra7126 the answer to what they will be spending that money on:
Dividends for directors/stakeholders.
Aka hookers and blow.
My best friend is a self published indie and it's hell. I don't know how much better a publisher would have been but it's been hell for them and to get their game out there and get the game known. It's such a shame, a team of 3 poured their heart into a good game and it remains unknown.
Always was wild to me how most authors make like 5% off their book sales. Viability of self-publishing is a huge development.
It's the same for musical artists, they get almost none of the money.
@@MrDeldris It's genuinely criminal. Now more than ever, considering how little actual work labels, publishers etc. do these days. Who gives a shit if they can get your book in a shelve at Barnes & Nobles, somewhere in the back corner of the store? People discover, buy and consume online. In the end, you have to do your own advertising if you want success. Doesn't matter if you have a publisher or label attached to you like a parasite. At least not when you start out.
@@Til_What yea, it seems best to build a name on your own, THEN make a deal with a publisher where you can make a deal on YOUR terms because they'd be benefitting from attaching themselves to you now. rather than you needing them.
Books are most enjoyed as a physical copy.
@@Til_What You realise publishers also pay for the editing, printing and distribution of books as well? It isn't surprising that someone on a Thor short is completely ignorant because he is completely ignorant as well. He just says absolute bullshit with confidence.
You know what, I've only been watching you for about 2 weeks, but it's really nice to listen to someone who is an expert in their field. It make such a lovely change on this platform.
Do I *need* to know this stuff? No.
Do I *want* to hear you talk about it? Absolutely yes.
I’m in a similar boat, except for about 1 week, and I absolutely need to know this stuff because I’m studying computer science
@@GimmeMyHandleBack oof, i used to teach computer science, good luck with that bud
This is the basic information ever tho. Unless you’re brain dead, it’s obvious shit. Just like everything else he says
Same for me! Just out of the blue! 😂 but I'm giving a thumbsup for every short im getting from him! Since I was liking every short I figured why not sub? So I did. He makes me want to get back into making games that died years ago. Keep up the good work man
What you say👍🏼
I've said this for years. Publishers had a place in the market when 95% of game sales were physical copies sold by a clerk
If you don't have any strong marketing plan or a community that follow you, your games will be dead the moment it release.
Hence why GOOD publishers are importants. Simply being featured by the like of Devolver Digital will boost your sells to the sky at a rate you wouldn't be able to achieve by yourself and few paid ads.
Don't underestimate marketing, the success of your game entierely depends on it. Whatever how good it is, if your game ain't at least suggested by Steam for few days, it's dead on arrival and will go deep down in the infinite bottom of steam catalogue.
I've seen some horror stories on reddit of devs saying the publisher did basically nothing, didn't communicate, maybe made a Facebook post, other than that did next to no marketing. Just sat on their asses siphoning money away.
Yeah, you have to be really contract and negotiation savvy for that kind of thing or you'll just get fleeced.
I can honestly only think of a single publisher that's renown for publishing and marketing nothing but great games that see a lot of publicity.
who@@Edward-Not-Elric
@@Edward-Not-Elriclet me guess... Devolver Digital?
@@nicreven What @Bloodhoven said. Devolver Digital seems to actually care. Or at least do their jobs well.
I just like them because they (or at least the guys at the top) have published every main serious sam game thus far (including TFE & TSE)
+ their main thing is indie games@@Edward-Not-Elric
I JUST started getting these shorts fed to me by YT.
Good job YT. It worked. I'm addicted to this dude.
Some publishers will even pay you for your game explicitly to sit on it because they have a game similar to it or they like more & they don't want your game to overshadow it if they see its already gotten a lot of natural traction. *DO NOT TRUST A PUBLISHER UNLESS YOU CAN REPLICATE THEIR PREDICTED RESULTS YOURSELF.* Sometimes even then I'd say it's not worth it because the potential for your game to get completely fucked over by adding that company into the mix is just too high
If you can replicate the results without publisher, do not have a publisher.
i think he is talking about projections, you still need money to finish the game@@MarkoIronFist
Yeah, any good deal makes more wealth for both parties than was possible without cooperation. Any deal that cuts into wealth of one party in net is a bad deal for that party.@@MarkoIronFist
@@MarkoIronFist Ikr?
This is what Sony is doing to Bloodborne
high up the reasons I gotta give it to yt algorithm is having randomly found your shorts one day.
I have been consistently educated effortlessly. thanks mate!
As a writer, I can attest that this is true AF. 👍
I would be intrested if you could develop.
@@prophetedubaroque5136Tell me you can’t read without telling me.
What are the other forms of getting seen and paid?
Only way I know to get money off of writing books is publishing them and getting the rev from there
You can absolutely self publish, it has gotten easier to do so in the modern age. But getting a publisher is still a common practice, so I think OP means more like finding the right publishers. Because book publishers will 110% screw you over in the same way other publishing companies do. Just because it's a common business practice, doesn't make book publishers any less of a vampire XD. You just had to either deal with it, or find a different book publisher that wont screw you over as hard/or (if you're really lucky), wont screw you over at all.
Fortunately, now self publishing is becoming more of a thing (via online publishing, and the like), and hopefully more avenues for self publishing will open up in the future.
@@shadowpower1856 I see, I knew the op probably refered to online publishing and the likes but I was interested to have is full thought if he had experiend as a self publisher. Nonetheless thank you for your answer.
so many devs need to hear this
its a relic of a time where the only way to publish is physical only
now theres still some use of them,but not as mandatory
This guys voice is so. Clear and nice to listen to. Very low yet very articulate.
Dude, your channel is awesome.
As a long time dev who's new to game making, this advice is worth its weight in gold.
Keep it up!
The easiest way to make money now that the internet is easily accessible to everyone is to ask a streamer to play your game. If you know the game is good and worth playing, then the loss of a single copy to let a big-time streamer play it and give their own opinions will far outweighed by the fans and connections of the streamer.
ayo dev if you need music/soundtrack let me know
So its worth nothing? Jk I know what you mean 😅
@mae4712 what type of music can you do?
This advice is misleading IMO. Most publishers don't just take your finished game and market it. The reason you go to them and sign off such a big cut or even ownership is because they provide the funding and resources that help the game actually get built in the first place. You can try to pull off a dwarf fortress or kenshi, but most games cost more than just your time to make.
I am currently studying for a game dev job. only been seeing your content for a month and the industry stuff you have talked about is such a eye-opener.
It's the same with advertising. I run a retail store. Traditional advertising like billboards and stuff have been such a waste of money for me. The only thing worth money dollar for dollar is digital advertising
They supposedly work, yet i've never seen anyone care about them, nor can i imagine a real human being who'd care about them existing.
It's also probably a matter of "it works best if your brand is already known/successful and you want to shove it down people's throat a bit further".
fun fact: Costco doesn't have a budget for advertisements. the company policy is word of mouth. Its also why they keep the hotdog combo at 1.50$ (or comparable based on local currency). Food court requires no membership (in most locations), you can walk in, see some things nearby you may be interested in, see that cheap gas, and get tempted to member up.
And with hitting algorithms on Instagram and Tiktok, you could do that for very cheap
@@Dice-ZWith excellent copywriting/editing, all advertisements can generate click-through/travel-to. The problem is very few are creating these signs with mastery of copy. It's an art form for marketing, and few have a mastery of it. And those that do have it, make gargantuan amounts of money and work for large copy/marketing firms.
I wish Arrowhead saw this clip…
Traditional book publishing is a little different, it’s getting an agent that’s the similar part which they’ll take 10% of everything. But getting an advance that you don’t need to pay back if it flops in the market is huge
It depends on the advance. Publishers don't give that much money out to new writers, I'd be surprised if the amount has changed in the last 30 years.
@@sorryman105it's not uncommon for publishers to use funding to boost sales numbers immediately after release. This is how so many books get sales related awards, despite being fairly unsuccessful overall
Book publishers are WORSE than game publishers. You only get ~10% of sales plus an overrated advance...it's a total fraud. The best bet is to self-publish and keep most of the profits. Yes, JK Rowling and George Martin get more but they outliers and big names. There are self-publishing kits for books, you can hire people to do proofing/cover artwork/etc...plus for marketing most publishers will demand YOU make significant steps to advertise raise PR for your book. If you have to do it anyways, who needs a publisher? Lastly, many publishers will second guess many of your decisions and force your to cut or add material in inappropriate spots. Sadly too many authors are hypnotized by the thought of an advance and they give away all their rights for it.
@@JACpotatosI wonder how much bank the new York best-seller folks have made
@@revimfadli4666 Honestly, it doesn't even cost much. They just release during periods where there isn't much competition and they'll buy enough books to give out or resell so that it boosts them to #1 on the correct day to get the award.
Hits harder after the recent Helldivers 2 fiasco
As someone whose job has been to help the publisher screw you I learned is there are two reasons you need a publisher for any indie tier project. The first is you've got something special and you need a way to market the fuck out of it and you ran out of money and you forgot to save some to hire marketing for yourself. The second is your almost done and you ran out of money and you need someone to foot the cost to finish the job.
Always start the discussion by asking them how much they will give you for 30% off the bottom. Never let them name a price or a rate without countering it with a rate and the question of how much they will give. I think the most hilarious deal I was ever privy to was 30% off the top until the publisher made their money back and then it became 15% off the bottom. This was in return for the publisher handling localization to eight different languages, marketing, and helping get the game onto a few alternative storefronts that used to be more selective about what got on.
And always make sure that if you sign any deals with conditionals that the conditionals are based off of sales not income nor critics scores. Just unit sales numbers. Also avoid A recent trend of conditionals based on "certain key influencers" looking at your game. It is never a good deal and you will always fail the condition. That condition is super scummy and I seen it a few times in niche genre games.
What they will do is they will list certain very niche genre UA-camrs and streamers who play very specific games and typically only do one or two videos outside of their main game or two, and they will tell you that combined amongst all of them you need to hit 50 hours of content. That doesn't sound like a lot. There will usually be several names on the list, many of whom put out several hours of content each week, several of which might even put out three or four hour videos multiple times a week or have several multi-hour streams. And they will probably set this condition to be over a very long period of time compared to other conditionals. I saw one company say that you had to have a 100 hours of content from the list of influencers they had marked for your genre within 3 years. That's an impossible task. The reason it is impossible is their viewers will watch one or two videos outside of their main games. Not only that but it will be a very small minority of their viewers who will watch those videos. It was also not be bringing in new viewers as readily as their main game. Therefore they will do a video or two each and then likely abandon you. Somebody way bigger than all of them combined might decide that they love that game and give you 600 hours of content within the time limit, but because they aren't on the shortlist it doesn't matter. And your publisher will tell you that they don't count because their viewer base has not been determined to be primarily interested in the type of game you made and therefore are not likely to buy the game. It's a condition designed to doom you.
So thats the practice in game publishing. I am like you, but on another type of IP, we don't do any of those. Usually its just normal advances or revenue sharing.
Noob question! What's the difference between off the top and off the bottom? Is that before and after overhead expenses respectively?
@@totally_not_a_botit sounds like revenue(top) vs net income(bottom)? So maybe % of selling price vs % of profit? Sorry I'm just guessing. I wanna know too.
The thing is word of mouth is free, and powerful. I’m way more likely to try a game my friends recommend over something I see advertised at me 10 times an hour.
@@DeathnoteBBhey, try smoking 🚬
I believe, from the only two indie developers I know personally, that if you can sustain yourself and you plan to continue developing personal projects, the exposure is worth the buyin for the first project you can get published IF YOU'RE UNABLE TO MARKET YOURSELF EFFECTIVELY
This advice has value in any business venture. There will always be people eager for a piece of a good idea who are ready to promise you they will add value.
But if they're not prepared to risk anything to make sure that your venture or idea or product succeeds? They will not be willing to work as hard as you did to make sure they hold up their end.
Never go into business with someone who isn't a sure thing - unless they're willing to put themselves in a position to lose every bit as much as you will if they fail.
Some good advice. I would say it's the same for job interviews. You don't go in there to be interviewed. You are going there to interview them to see if THEY are valuable enough for your high value. The table simply needs to be flipped around on them, in that regard you get everything you want and more, and the company gets the best candidate for the role. That's what they're really looking for after all.
The answer will almost always be I don't know. Some great games that came out flopped and it was till years later when the game company went bankrupt that people started to really buy the game.
"The answer will almost always be I don't know."
Only if you dont know what you are doing. Most jam-dwellers dont know what they are doing.
@@bronzejourney5784The thing is, without a marketing budget, you truly don't know. Unless your publisher does give you explicit numbers about how much they'll spend advertising your game and it's significant, you can't know.
@@Exilum I did know.
What a good thing to tell people, man I hope every indie developer sees this.
I'm glad the algorithm made you start popping up recently. I like your content man. Good stuff
This is honestly just completely solid advice for anyone in any industry.
Just traveling,
Wont ever help me, but this should be the thought process for new 'developers'.
I'm a decade plus on the music industry as a recording engineer. This is VERY accurate advice.
Manage your own brand until you're growing to a point that you need the extra help. And if you get to this point you'll have all the leverage because you'll come with an audience.
Perfect music industry example is Dave Mathew's band.
Someone put a go fund me to pay a bodyguard for him, we need to protect this man at all costs
Contract agencies in the software world are terrible too. One job I got through an agency i eventually found out that they were taking 40% off the top of what they were getting paid for as long as i had the contract and they provided me nothing aside from the interview. Putting me in that room earned them like $150,000, it's truly insane how much money they make doing that
Also remember, networking. Networking is incredibly important. Take note of UA-camr's that play lesser known games, or that have an interest that lines up with the game your making. All a publisher is really doing is marketing your game for you, sometimes a publisher can aid in getting game's out but more than likely it's just marketing. You can do a good part of it yourself and at the end of the day that may be all it takes.
This is the benefit of professionals having outlets like this. This is the kind of mentorship a lot of people would pay for and need. Stuff you have to parse through to figure out the truth yourself.
It would seem that Publishers need to market themselves to you as much as you have to them
As someone coming from the music industry, record labels work the same way. In many cases, you don’t see a dime of your profits until you recoup what they loan you. In many cases with smaller artists this can hurt more than help.
ironic that i got recommended this short right after the offbrandgames announcement :/
That's solid advice.
Works for the music industry as well (publishers / labels / etc)
Yeah, used to be you needed publishers because they spent the millenia of their unlive networking and amassing the assets needed to distribute games, but thanks to the power of digital distribution, we don't need those bloodsuckers anymore.
Thank you for helping people. I love watching your videos because I don't need to filter through what you say, it's just honesty.
I’m not planning on making a game but I am definitely trying to write a book. I’m taking so many mental notes
Last comment you made is 100%. This is great advice because it applies to every single thing. Even Gary Gygax made this mistake.
I am a Real Estate agent, biggest question by my potential sellers, "why should I give away 7% of the profit of my house to an agent?"
I've never lost a listing over this question. Why? Long story short, most homeowners sell their home anywhere between 12-20% less than sellers who used an agent.
A creative product, like a game or a book is a piece of yourself. It could be the most important asset you own, don't give it to someone else.
I wish I had discovered this dude much sooner. Absolute Chad!
As an aspiring writer and (currently low-key) game-dev dreamer, thank you!
100% correct. If anyone wants your money, they need to show **exactly** how you'll be better off for it.
Predatory publishing is as old as the hills in all facets of intellectual property, not just the videogame industry.
With money matters, your default answer should always be "no" until they can prove that it's worth a "yes".
That’s pretty much why I have so much respect for Dunkey and his publishing team. One of the few out there that realize that both parties can mutually benefit without having to screw over devs
This is why new blood is based as hell.
new blood?
Context?
wolfeinstein?
@@Bloodhovenindie publisher/developer who specializes in boomer shooters. They’re a pretty beloved in the space. Not exactly sure what their business model is but apparently OP thinks they’re pretty cool.
Faith: the unholy trinity, ultrakill, dusk, and a few other great games are published by new blood interactive, and from what i heard they pretty much just let the devs do whatever they want without limiting their creative vision or siphoning 90% of the money. Which already makes them an S-tier publisher by comparison.
Thanks Thor I enjoy your UA-cam shorts they are clear and concise to the point with no bullshit advice.
it's just the stuff you need to know and nothing you don't and you might even learn some stuff sometimes I certainly do.
Its Not that easy to compare with book publishing. Cuz publishing and multiplying a book (printing, Binding, Cover) is way Harder than publishing your game on Steam or smth comparable.
Okay youre comparing a material good to a digital copy, games up until very recently still had to handle the same logistics of making a CD. Hence why its still an apt comparison, people are super on the fence about going fully digital for content because of TOS and censorship BS from corporations.
Make a clan tag the dev doesnt like? Bye bye access key, youve been banned entirely from all aspects of your purchased digital copy. Cant even play story mode, your access key to launch is gone.
With a disc however they cant revoke squat. Things are about to get very 1984 animal farmy very soon, even for in home entertainment.
@@100GTAGUY ye not denying that. just saying that publishers are much needed in other environments, even tho it sucks
Also keep in mind that no marketer can guarantee sales. That's now how marketing works.
And then theres all the games where publishers just decided to not market them, but they still take the cut. :)
Dude you've got such good takes on everything I watch. Thanks for helping indie devs and giving good advice.
Yeah.... We took a publisher for our game and they actually got us some decent content creators..... but 0 ads or other competent marketing. Within 6 months they created 50 social media followers. When we tried it ourselves we made 125 within a single month just stumbling around.
They take 20% on pc and 40% on consoles and they do JACK SHIT. They are incompetent to the point they fail at basics.
I really regret that we signed with them. Had we taken certain other publishers (there are great ones like Hooded Horse), it would have been good.
The only major good things they did were:
- They got us a booth at Gamescom
- They got us a stream with a big content creator
Thats it. No advertisement, recouping of marketing assets that were crap and weren't used.... bad idea.
They also ALWAYS prioritized their other games.
Thank you so much for making these videos. I don't know why, but it takes me back to the shareware/freeware days, hell even the old Amiga public domain days.
I understand that things have changed a lot, but there was a time when games didn't live or die if it had words like "Activision" or "Unreal Engine" in the marketing or on a title screen.
Your videos are inspirational and hopefully fall upon the ears of that person/persons slogging it out on their passion project wondering if what they are doing is right, and in the end is it worth putting in the work.
And this is why developers need someone with legal or economic experience.
Unfortunately lawyers are viewed in an extremely similar light as publishers, just grabbing at your money hoping to do the bare minimum for maximum income.
If you do however find a lawyer worth their salt hire them immediately, maybe even consider putting them onto your own compankes legal team if you dont have one.
case in point: this video
This is a very good piece of advice. I included this soundbite in a recent video I made warning content creators about blindly signing up for something without thinking of your channel’s future. I made sure to direct people back to this clip!
As a software engineer that is making music, all of your advice is priceless. Thanks
Having stuff like UA-cam shorts, tik tok, and Instagram reels is a great way to market your game better than most publishers
I don't think most games need a publisher publishers are a bit scummy and detrimental to the creative process. From what I've read anyways.
Wow.
What a great radio-talk voice you have, oh my!
Uniquely great sounding to the ears- the kind that's easy and enjoyable to listen to reading outloud/storytelling!!!
I absolutely love this guy!! The advice he gives is in relation to games and game development etc but you can take it and apply it to all sorts of life situations. Amazing guy, so humble and honest. We need more people like him in this world.
They are worse than worthless - they are negative value.
There are a lot of publishers out there that can really help prop up developers.
A great one that comes to mind is Devolver Digital. They've helped a ton of indie games like Enter the Gungeon, Cult of the Lamb, Inscryption, etc.
It's so invaluable because this happens in the music world. You'll hear all these stories of indie bands that were found by the big label and hit it big. This is not the case for everyone and in large part if a band signs a deal like this and the label doesn't recoup the costs of the record, you will never see that band again because not only will they be released from the label but they will be indebted to the label until such a time as the label recoups those costs.
I never knew how this process worked.
i love how today, even with Thor working on a publisher he maintains the same opinion, this man is a legend
100% can attest to this. I fell for this trap sadly, and after signing I started running numbers, and I realized I might never see positive returns from doing this, which demotivated me and now my book remains unfinished.
A general tip for business being put through the lens of Publisher deals makes this a pretty great short.
There will never be a solid plan that makes sense. Marketing campaign are not predictable no matter how “good” they may seem.
Definitely a good example of a ‘You don’t need a Publisher’ is Zeekers, the developer/publisher of Lethal Company. Dude made that shit by himself, published it by himself on steam and made an instant classic for anybody who had 20 bucks to spare. Dude is a millionaire now, as a result of that explosion of popularity
As a player I think Annapurna has done a fantastic publishing job, their catalogue is packed with amazing games like Stray, Cocoon, and Outer Wilds. I just hope their business practices are fair
You explained this whole concept better and easier in a seconds-long short than a whole GDC lecture I once watched that lasted over half an hour.
„If they don’t make you more profit then they cost you, then they aren’t worth it.“ I think that kind of applies to everything in life lol. And you can take enjoyment as a type of profit
This is suddenly the most interesting channel out there for me. Its like I can apply all of it to every aspect of life and then there is the gaming aspect of things. Its smart its fun Im diggin' it.
This dude quickly became one of my favorite UA-cam shorts to flip through. I’ve played bloat and games since Warcraft II that’s what got me started. But this dude is next level genius in the cyber space
A lot of starting gamedevs are going to publishers to have money to develop the game until it comes out. That's why what happens after the games gets made and put into the market can be an afterthought.
This short randomly showed up in my suggestions and... honestly, I'm subscribing. The little nugget of knowledge is so useful. I'm in the process of writing a novel series. I'm nearing the end of the very first book, and this is something I'm gonna have to start looking into. It's so simple, but it makes so much sense.
Good point! Nowadays thanks to the internet, publishers no longer have a monopoly on publishing stuff. Nowadays you either don't need one or you're a big enough company that you can just employ some people to do that job.
Hello! This explains EDM music labels perfectly too. There are so many labels out there and very few that actually have the proof and reputation to make sense to artists. Thanks for this video, I'm gonna link this a lot now haha.
You’re like the father that I never had. I could have used this life advice SO much as a teenager.
You break things down the best I have ever heard from anyone in the industry
It's also the fact that publishers don't care whether or not your game succeeds. They care about the money they got from publishing it. So if you publish it yourself and extend the reach of the game and put it in front of people, it's 100% return.
Publishers can really screw you over if you're not careful, don't underestimate the risks. Keep control of your intellectual property, it's crucial for your success.
Love what you're saying! Publishers are soul sucking vampires. I work for a small-ish studio that for years just did outsource work and made assets, now we are getting ready to release our first real game and the publisher offers that pop up are just obscene.
So we hilariously give them back such insane counter offers that they just cease contact with us.
The other thing is with social media and everything is that you can freely/ cheaply market a game yourself so publishers have even less use at times.
There's also no guarantee that the publisher won't ramp down their efforts to publish and market your game once they've recouped their costs.
I appreciate him including books in this too. Publishing is purely about promotional clout, nothing more. It’s marketing. If their marketing isn’t going to pay off for you, you don’t need or want their help.
I learned this personally by playing Game Dev Tycoon. Look at how much money you make with a publisher vs. how much you make without. At the beginning, you need a publisher if you want to make a AAA game so you can get your game out to a larger market, but you can totally self-publish smaller games. As you grow, you don't need a publisher as much.
It’s the SAME exact way in the music industry. People think you need to sign to a label to make it. EVERYTHING the label does for you is a loan that, believe me, you ARE going to pay back to them. That’s why touring is so important. Bands make more money on touring/merch than ANYTHING to do with their actual music.
It's crazy when steam frontpage and making it on subreddits does more than any marketing these days. At least for PC games.
I worked in the QA department on a game called Steel Soldiers way back in 2001 which released without any fanfare because the marketing people didn't do their job, which caused the company to fold. Such a shame, as it was genuinly a fantastic game.
The dev of my favorite game just got a publisher who is handling their advertising only. Dev is 100% for everything with the game. Effectively just a hype man 😂